Putting examples in alphabetical order

Now, I know this should go without saying, because alphabetical order is the standard way of sorting out examples.

But...I have come across some strange cases that I hope someone here can clarify.

1. Titles beginning with the word "The". Namespace has titles beginning with "The" placed in the "T" section, while pages like Needs Wiki Magic Love essentially act like "The" doesn't start the title, and orders it by the first letter of the word that comes after "The".
2. Titles beginning with a number. Should they be put in numerical order and before the letter "A", or should they put in order of the number name? (e.g. 90210 or Nine Oh Two One Oh placed in the "N" section)

Situations like this just drive me up the wall and I'm hoping for some clarification.

How To Alphabetize. Buuuut, in order...

1. Articles are ignored for alphabetization purposes. "The", "A" and "An" are all ignored. The Cranberries will go under C, not T.
2. Numbers, which are usually in effect via custom-titles, precede letters. Which is why Twentieth Century Boys goes before Azumanga Daioh.

edited 21st Feb '13 2:46:55 PM by lu127

Oh, thank you so much! That really helps in figuring out how to handle examples.

Note that sorting of examples into alphabetical order by work name is permissible but by no means required, nor is it the default sorting order. The default order is in order of addition to the page.

If you do sort a page alphabetically, it's recommended to put a commented out note at the top noting that, so that editors know to put new examples in in order rather than where they normally go (which is at the end).

Alphabetical order is preferred to my knowledge, though. It helps a lot if you're trying to eliminate duplicates or group franchises. On the other hand, I would have to focus to put games within a series in alphabetical order rather than chronological order if I know which came first.

Also, alphabetic order is universally recognizable. Most other orders aren't.

When you have a franchise, you indent them chronologically, if you know the order. Harry Potter And The Philosophers Stone goes before Harry Potter And The Chamber Of Secrets. However, Harry Potter, which will be the starter bullet, goes in regular alphabetic order.

edited 22nd Feb '13 5:17:25 AM by lu127

I actually do that whether the franchise is grouped to one bullet or not, though usually I group them if they're not.

Just to be clear here: alphabetization is standard to the point of being essentially mandatory on work pages and indexes. Higher level groups are allowed ("soft splits"), but within a group, the entries should be alphabetical.

On trope pages, alphabetization is so rare as to be practically non-existent, and, while it is allowed, many people seriously dislike it, because they want to see new entries at the end of a section. If you want to maintain alphabetical order on a trope page, you need to volunteer to watch the page and make sure the entries stay alphabetical. And don't complain if someone doesn't notice your note, because that's just not something we normally do.

Within a single example is something I haven't really given much thought to before. What I usually see is:

• Work has example X.
  • Also example Y.

Which I fix to:

• Work has:
  • Example X.
  • Example Y.

More often than not, I have no idea which comes first chronologically or anything, so don't expect more of me. I have sorted franchise sub-examples chronologically (which is indeed what seems correct to me), if I know the chronology, and feel like taking the time, but otherwise, they just go in whatever order they were originally listed. Just getting them indented properly is already a huge improvement over the typical status quo! :)

If someone is relying on examples being added at the bottom to see the new ones, they're going to miss out a lot. Many examples are additions to already existing works or franchises on the page, and then there are many cases where people simply don't put the new ones at the bottom. Just recently I saw a Kokoro Connect example at the top, which is a recent series.

Adding new examples for existing franchises is quite rare. As for something added at the top, that's a clear violation of How To Write An Example:

"If the page is organized by medium, put a new example in as the last example in that medium."

and

"If the page has no special order, put brand new examples on the bottom of the page. That makes it clear that this is a new entry, for tropers wanting to know what's been added to pages. Also consider adding the page to Pages Needing Example Sorting."

We went over this at great length fairly recently, in a huge discussion about alphabetizing trope pages, and the conclusion was: it's allowed, but only if someone is willing to take the time to curate a page.

One huge problem with alphabetizing on trope pages: sometimes you only get the name of the author ("In a short-story by So-and-So..." or "So-and-So uses this exactly the same way in each of his works, as follows...") and sometimes you only get the name of the work ("In The Work..."). So you can't alphabetize by author name or work name, because neither is guaranteed to be present.

edited 23rd Feb '13 1:14:06 PM by Xtifr

These would be editors and frequent visitors, not our primary writing target, the casual reader. Most recent at the bottom is the worst possible way to organize things as you have to be around a lot to understand why the entry is at the bottom. Just use the alphabet. Keeping it in that order has much wider adoption than is suggested above and it makes sense to everyone.

edited 23rd Feb '13 8:40:17 PM by FastEddie

On trope pages? I can't remember ever seeing a trope page where the examples were alphabetical. I assume there are one or two out there, since some people had expressed interest in doing such a thing, but I have yet to stumble across an example. Can you name one?

(And as I mentioned before, author-name vs. work-name makes it an incredibly difficult thing to do even if you want to.)

This was the first one I looked at: Fictional Currency

By medium, then alphabetical by source. Whether the source is an author name or the name of a specfic work makes no difference. It is a source.

edited 23rd Feb '13 8:44:09 PM by FastEddie

How is that alphabetical? Shadowrun comes before Exalted, Star Trek comes before Battlestar Galactica, Spore comes before Chrono Trigger, Starflight comes before Halo, Sprawl Trilogy comes before Harry Potter comes before Gor, and on and on.

In any case, I don't personally care, because I use history if I want to see what's changed, but back when I was a causal visitor who only showed up once every month or two, I preferred being able to see new entries for the tropes I found interesting at a glance. I suspect your view may be skewed because only the people who dislike the current arrangement will bother to complain, while the people who are happy with it are silent. (I also suspect, human nature being what it is, that no form of organization will please everyone.) :)

edited 23rd Feb '13 11:27:39 PM by Xtifr

I'm a bit obssessive about alphabetizing, so you'll find it in pages I launched. Case in point: Politically-Active Princess, Status Cell Phone, Thinking Tic, Apocalypse Cult. I also do it on pages I sort. Sequential Boss, Magikarp Power, etc.

I do in principle approve of alphabet, assuming that we have a way to deal with works without a name (since general "this medium does this a lot" are axed).

The ordering by origin date of the example a) discriminates against newer additions, b) is somewhat mysterious (I have no idea how pages are ordered mostentimes) and c) makes it hard to search for a given work.

That said, How To Write An Example says to add new entries at the bottom, so we might want to edit that if we change policy.

Personally I think "new examples at the bottom" isn't an order at all. It's just a lazy way of adding stuff, like throwing the new mail you get in a pile, which only creates a disorganised mess. If you can't see what order the example are in there's no functional order.

But some people (in the previous huge thread we had on the topic) explicitly said that they prefer it, and why. Me, I'm not so obsessive that I care either way. :)

There is something to be said for having codifiers and such near the top, in some cases. For example, when I created Hardboiled Detective, I very carefully listed the best-known, most-canonical examples at the tops of the film and literature sections. I think that really helps. Of course, most tropes don't have such obvious codifiers, so we can't do that everywhere. But overall, I'd almost prefer chronological ordering over alphabetical for many tropes. Start with the original examples, then go on...

I do not agree that using a codifier is a good idea - too subjective.

That said, there is benefit in not having some hard-and-fast law on the topic.

I think few people would dispute "Sam Spade and Philip Marlowe" in the case I mentioned. But I agree that many cases aren't so clear-cut.

Nevertheless, I think chronological order makes more sense than alphabetical, and would actually prefer it in almost all cases. I just can't imagine trying to enforce it. :)

eta: I mean chronological order of the actual works themselves, of course. What we have now could also be called chronological order, so I wanted to be clear. But if a trope can be traced back to Gilgamesh, I think that's always a good place to start. :)

edited 24th Feb '13 11:08:45 PM by Xtifr

I think chronological order would be great. If it was actually possible to determine what that is without extra research.

Yeah, chronological order needs more research by both readers and editors to operate and use.

I think even a rough chronological order is better than the alternatives. I may not know whether the Norse Eddas come before or after The Journey to the West, but I'd still rather see how both of those use the trope before we get into yet another lengthy list of all the ways that Terry Pratchett has parodied it. :)

Heck, I'd like to see a mention of how Mark Twain parodied the trope before the discussion of how Pratchett did it.

And I'm a big fan of Pratchett. ;)

Sorting approximately by centuries for the oldest stuff, and by the approximate decade for more recent stuff is probably good enough. I don't think we need to worry about year-by-year or month-by-month.

I'm tempted to go sort a couple of the tropes I've launched by "approximate decade" right now, in fact. :)

Say, has anyone checked out the Video Game Companies page, by any chance?

Some of the VG companies have a lot of games listed. Is it better to list the games in alphabetical order or chronological order?